The present invention relates to a sterilizing apparatus and a sterilizing method for automatically sterilizing medical instruments such as endoscopes or the like using oxidation water.
The use of endoscopes has rapidly spread in recent years to inspect upper and lower alimentary canal such as the esophagus, stomach, etc. and the large intestine, etc., inviting an increase in the number of the endoscopic inspections carried out in each facility. In spite of this fact, however, every facility owns only a few endoscopes due to their high unit cost. Although the endoscopes are cleaned and sterilized at the end of a day's use before being kept in the depositary, the sterilization of the endoscopes cannot be deemed sufficient, because the frequency of use is increased, although the facility possesses only a small number of endoscopes. In other words, the frequency of use of each endoscope is increased, or due to time and labor problems. The endoscopes shared among patients are consequently not clean, resulting in a fear that germs and virus adhering to the endoscopes are spread among the patients. Infection by the germs and virus has drawn particular attention lately in accordance with the increased use of the endoscopes.
Any sterilizers for the endoscopes in the market use a sterilizing liquid or a disinfectant including a liquid medicine, e.g., a glutaraldehyde formulation solution, which require not only soaking the endoscopes in the sterilizing liquid, but also rinsing the sterilization liquid, (ie, several tens of minutes in total). The endoscopes shared among the patients cannot be sterilized in a simple manner and in a short time by the above conventional sterilizers.